Apparently they can produce some smell, but I've been throwing these bastards in the toilet and outside without any harm so far. If they are stink bugs, any advice on how to get rid of them? If they aren't, what are they? Should I be concerned?

I have those guys in Virginia. I think they're kinda cute! Agree that they're pretty chill. Usually a few of them will pop up when the weather changes, but they're easy to escort outside or whatever.

Definitely do not crush them, you will be sad. I have heard stories of houses that are infested with them, and that sounds like super bad times; I don't know what would actually cause an infestation, though.

They're quite common to find in buildings as the weather gets cooler. The best thing you can do if they're bothering you is to try and find cracks where they might be getting in and seal them up.

Or, if you're like me, you can just let them crawl on your hands for a bit. They're pretty chill about it.

A vacuum cleans them up pretty well if they start to get overwhelming numbers-wise, from experience with them getting all throughout a former workplace. They are, as stated, not really that bothersome in general though.

Thanks everyone. So I learned that this species is an invasive species from Asia that ruins fruit crops. I also read New York intends to release batches of its natural predator into the wild, to reduce their numbers. The Samurai Wasp is their natural predator.

Thanks everyone. So I learned that this species is an invasive species from Asia that ruins fruit crops. I also read New York intends to release batches of its natural predator into the wild, to reduce their numbers. The Samurai Wasp is their natural predator.

I don't know how I feel about that.

Pretty sure I've seen this episode of The Simpsons and we know how this is going to turn out.

OP I live in an area with absurd amounts of stinkbugs. They have no natural predator here and they are indeed very invasive. Every september they make their way into buildings, crawl spaces, and attics. This year hasn't been too bad at my house but the last several years these fuckers have gotten worse and worse. I tend to kill them because despite what people may say the stink really isn't bad and even when you smush them it is limited to a tiny localized area. Putting them outside just means they are going to come back inside.

Thanks everyone. So I learned that this species is an invasive species from Asia that ruins fruit crops. I also read New York intends to release batches of its natural predator into the wild, to reduce their numbers. The Samurai Wasp is their natural predator.

I don't know how I feel about that.

Pretty sure I've seen this episode of The Simpsons and we know how this is going to turn out.

OP I live in an area with absurd amounts of stinkbugs. They have no natural predator here and they are indeed very invasive. Every september they make their way into buildings, crawl spaces, and attics. This year hasn't been too bad at my house but the last several years these fuckers have gotten worse and worse. I tend to kill them because despite what people may say the stink really isn't bad and even when you smush them it is limited to a tiny localized area. Putting them outside just means they are going to come back inside.

Thanks everyone. So I learned that this species is an invasive species from Asia that ruins fruit crops. I also read New York intends to release batches of its natural predator into the wild, to reduce their numbers. The Samurai Wasp is their natural predator.

Thanks everyone. So I learned that this species is an invasive species from Asia that ruins fruit crops. I also read New York intends to release batches of its natural predator into the wild, to reduce their numbers. The Samurai Wasp is their natural predator.

I don't know how I feel about that.

Pretty sure I've seen this episode of The Simpsons and we know how this is going to turn out.

OP I live in an area with absurd amounts of stinkbugs. They have no natural predator here and they are indeed very invasive. Every september they make their way into buildings, crawl spaces, and attics. This year hasn't been too bad at my house but the last several years these fuckers have gotten worse and worse. I tend to kill them because despite what people may say the stink really isn't bad and even when you smush them it is limited to a tiny localized area. Putting them outside just means they are going to come back inside.

After discovering their background, I have flushed every one down the toilet on sight. Let them and the samurai wasps fight it out down there.

Thanks everyone. So I learned that this species is an invasive species from Asia that ruins fruit crops. I also read New York intends to release batches of its natural predator into the wild, to reduce their numbers. The Samurai Wasp is their natural predator.

I don't know how I feel about that.

Pretty sure I've seen this episode of The Simpsons and we know how this is going to turn out.

OP I live in an area with absurd amounts of stinkbugs. They have no natural predator here and they are indeed very invasive. Every september they make their way into buildings, crawl spaces, and attics. This year hasn't been too bad at my house but the last several years these fuckers have gotten worse and worse. I tend to kill them because despite what people may say the stink really isn't bad and even when you smush them it is limited to a tiny localized area. Putting them outside just means they are going to come back inside.

After discovering their background, I have flushed every one down the toilet on sight. Let them and the samurai wasps fight it out down there.

Do you want teenage mutant ninja stink bugs? Because that's how you get teenage mutant ninja stink bugs.

I'm not saying we are going to have an autocratic dystopia, but things keep happening that look like they come from an autocratic dystopia.

Fair warning as well, they really love crawling into ac units. A few years ago I pulled mine out for the year and was carrying it down a flight of stairs to the basement when they started crawling up my arms. =\

The boxelder bugs are black with orange marks, the stink bugs are different critters.

Also they're kind of ovalish, stinkbugs have a distinct "shoulder" that makes them almost triangular.

I cooked one of these guys with one of those dumb electrical flyswatters once. The good news is they're big enough that they don't usually hit the inside filaments and the outer mesh together and just bounce off, and don't really care about getting batted about a bit. The bad news is, they *usually* don't complete the circuit. They sometimes do, and you'll spend the rest of the evening apologizing to the angry spirits of every bug you've ever zapped with it.

If you're worried about the smell from squishing one, that's like rubbing a piece of bacon on the wall, zapping one is like frying it up. Rubbing it on the wall might have a stronger smell, but frying it will fill the house with the inescapable aroma. Only instead of bacon it's the smell of sorrow and regret.

So I was in vacation in Michigan last week, and a similar bug landed on my hand while I was playing on my phone. I didn't think anything of it, until it released a few microdroplets of some sort of liquid that fell onto my shirt. It wasn't noticeably smelly or anything. Do beetles pee? Did I just get peed on by a bug?

If it's liquid waste, it may actually be a number of things. Given the assumption that it was a similar looking bug to what the OP describes, it A. wasn't a beetle and B. probably excreted a combination of H20 and sugars. In smaller hemipterans like aphids, this is called "honeydew", and is harvested by ants and bees as a food source, but in larger bugs, it is probably less concentrated and less...delicious.

Insects do excrete nitrogen in their "urine" like other animals, but generally one of the more common waste products for phloem feeders like hemipterans is the excess water and sugar they intake while feeding on plant tissue. Plants are mostly water and sugar, so in order to get enough protein the insects have to drink a ridiculous amount of liquids from their host plant, and this creates problems for maintaining homeostatic balance inside the bug, especially because they also tend to consume a larger amount of carbohydrates than they can actually utilize in an attempt to get enough protein to live.

So they pass their waste through their hindgut where they absorb as much as they can (after collecting the first round of proteins in a filter chamber earlier on in the feeding process), and eventually what they release is a super concentrated bit of water and sugars.

Hmm this got too long

Anyway sometimes they also do this to cool themselves down through evaporative release of water

@Arch and @BugBoy I was thinking about you guys today. I was at a US Customs discussion, and one of the inspection people who looks at incoming cargo was telling us she has 2 entomology degrees, and that even though she can (and likes to) identify most of the bugs she runs across while inspecting cargo and/or packing material, she has to send it off to the officially certified indentifiers with.... USDA? so that they can say if the bugs are invasive species and if the shipment can enter the country, has to be returned, fumigated, or has to be destroyed.
It was kinda interesting!